International aid agencies have warned that medical supplies in the Iraqi capital Baghdad were critically low and hospitals were stretched to the limit coping with wounded from heavy fighting inside the city.

"They have reached the limit of their capacity," said Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Ms Doumani told a press briefing by aid agencies that Iraqi surgeons and medical staff were working round the clock and running low on medicines and surgical equipment including anaesthetics.

"When this conflict started we all said there were sufficient supplies in Baghdad for several weeks at least of normal medical operations," Iain Simpson, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

"This is not a normal medical situation and so supplies are running very low, particularly emergency supplies," he said.

ICRC was delivering limited emergency stocks in the Iraqi capital, while the WHO said it was trying to gain access for a convoy of trucks from Jordan which was waiting with medical supplies for hospitals in Baghdad.

The fighting in Baghdad is taking an increasing toll on the Iraqi capital's hospitals, according to the Red Cross. The director of the Red Cross team in the city, Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, said the start of ground operations by US troops in and around the city in recent days had led to a massive increase in doctors' workloads.

This contrasted with the situation during the aerial bombardment of the city in recent weeks, he said, when hospitals had mostly treated casualties with relatively light shrapnel injuries.

"Now when you have military engagement on the ground level, most people, at least the combatants, are hit much more seriously... it's all the more work for the doctors," Mr Huguenin-Benjamin told the BBC.

'Exhausted'

Just one of Baghdad's hospitals had carried out 60 serious operations in one day, he said. Doctors were exhausted and drug supplies, particularly anaesthetics, were running low.

One of the largest and most modern hospital complexes - the Medical City group of four hospitals - was now without power or water and just six of its 27 operating theatres were able to work, said Mr Benjamin.

The water station supplying the hospital had been hit, he said, and engineers were attempting to get it working again. In the meantime, the Red Cross is attempting to get water tankers to the hospital.

Mr Huguenin-Benjamin said he was also very concerned that another water pumping station in Baghdad had been put out of action, and that a large part of the city would soon be without water.

A doctor at al-Kindi hospital in the north-east of the city said he had had to treat "injuries to the head, to the chest, to the limbs".

The hospital only had enough medical supplies to last for another two days, he added.

A Red Cross spokeswoman in Geneva, Antonella Notari, said the organisation might need to bring extra supplies into Baghdad from warehouses in Iran, Kuwait, Jordan or Syria, depending on the length of the fighting, the number of new casualties and security guarantees.

The United Nations has described the situation in Baghdad's hospitals as "critical", while the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of a health emergency both in Baghdad and in the country as a whole.

U.S. humanitarian assistance in Iraq has "increased in importance," General Brooks said. Needs resulting from "years of oppression, and some resulting from the ongoing combat actions," must be met, but the humanitarian emergencies are not on the scale of recent conflicts anywhere in the world, the general said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that hospitals in Baghdad and elsewhere were overwhelmed by the numbers of injured, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said a humanitarian clock is ticking with each passing day, and the World Food Programme (WFP) predicted it would have to move in massive amounts of food next month.

"We have all seen some very disturbing pictures of child victims of this conflict - children with burn injuries, a young boy lying in a hospital bed, both his arms blown off," WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib told reporters. "And away from the cameras, these scenes are being repeated every day."

Right now, most of it's directed at you, who have spent months dinigrating Allied efforts to free these people, who have suffered much worse under Saddam than they suffer now.

My outrage is used up at your picking at every little thing the US does, totally ignoring it's successes and Saddam's crimes. You have defended this beast and you continue to do so.

I am ashamed that you ignore the millions of starving and sick people all over the world, to concentrate on a few who suffer in the midst of military action, so you can point your greasy finger once again at America.

This is what is known as a 'complex disaster" (i.e. as opposed to a "non-complex disaster").

A complex disaster is one that occurs in the middle of human conflict situations and cannot be addressed through normal disaster response channels except through special arrangements with the conflicting parties.

I don't think even Medecins Sans Frontiers is there yet.

Everybody feels for these people but w/o a go-ahead from the Pentagon, nothing can happen.

UB: you make it sound so easy. Even the stomach-wounded Russian driver in the Russian ambassador's convoy hasn't been given medical evac to better facilities yet.

Meanwhile, we have this:

A spokesperson for the World Health Organization Melanie Zipperer says that an epidemic of cholera may hit Iraq. Since the Iraqis are in dire need of food and potable water, more food reliefs are coming from the United Nations, But the United Nations' humanitarian programs coordinator for Iraq David Wimhearst (?) says that the hospitals of Iraq cannot take in all the wounded. The wounded people of the south Iraqi city of Umm-Qasr cannot receive adequate medical treatment because of the shortage of medical drugs.
*************************************

dolphin's question about use of the airport is an excellent one. Something progressive has to happen here in the next couple of days.......or else............

This Russian cargo is sitting in Iran, wasted, as there are no Iran-bound refiugees:

2003-03-21 16:08 * RUSSIA * PRESIDENT * EMERGENCIES-MIN * MEETING *

EMERGENCIES MINISTRY READY TO RENDER HUMANITARIAN AID TO IRAQ REFUGEESMoscow, March 21, 2003 (from a RIA Novosti correspondent) - RussianPresident Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Emergencies MinisterSergei Shoigu.The president asked the minister about the progress of preparations forRussia rendering humanitarian assistance to refugees in view of Iraq-relateddevelopments.The emergencies minister said today marks the first stage of aiding refugeesto arrive from Baghdad to Kirmanshah. The first plane will land inKirmanshah (Iran) tonight. The 5-km hospital area is situated on the Iranianside near the Kirmanshah-Baghdad highway.The first stage includes deploying a hospital for 5,000 people with fullprovision. There the humanitarian cargo for the 2nd and 3rd stages will alsobe placed. Besides, there are also prospects for creating camps on Turkishterritory.During the second stage, two hospitals and a camp for 5,000 people will beset up near the Kirmanshah-Baghdad highway. More than 100 Russianspecialists will be engaged in the effort.Following the meeting, the minister told journalists the president hadadopted the decision on the first stage of the humanitarian operation backon March 13th, and since then relevant consultations had been held with theIranian authorities. Now, consultations to the effect are beginning with theTurkish leadership, he pointed out.Sergei Shoigu did not rule it out that Russia would render humanitarianassistance under the UN aegis on Iraqi territory as well.

The Japanese Red Cross Society
plans to send an emergency
relief team to Iran to help
Iraqi refugees.
The team, called the Emergency
Response Unit, consists of 13
doctors and nurses experienced
in international activities.

At Narita Airport on Thursday,
the team was preparing to send
out medical goods,
water-purifying devices,
generators and big tents.

The team members want to enter
Iran, where the biggest number
of refugees are expected to go.
They aim to set up a temporary
clinic at a refugee camp in
Iran to provide medical
services to the refugees.

The Japanese Red Cross Society
says it plans to send out the
medical team as soon as
refugees arrive in Iran.

MOSCOW, March 26th, 2003 /from RIA Novosti correspondent GalinaBaryshnikova/ -- A brigade of Russian doctors is ready to leave for Iraq torender medical help to the Iraqi children, who suffered in the militaryaction. This was disclosed by famous paediatrician, professor, Chairman ofthe International Committee on Paediatric Disaster Medicine of the WorldAssociation for Disaster and Emergency Medicine Leonid Roshal.

Roshal was the one to render help to hostages in the besieged Theatre Centrein Dubrovka in Moscow in October 2002.

According to him, the Russian Red Cross and paediatricians sent to theInternational Red Cross Committee a letter, in which they stated theirreadiness to leave for Iraq in order to help the Iraqi children. "However,we have not received an answer yet," Roshal noted.

get your shit together or you'll make a real mess of the situation you created:

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the U.S. Congress is growing increasingly uncomfortable with the role of the Pentagon in establishing the ground rules for postwar Iraq. In moves that span party lines, the Senate has reportedly barred the Pentagon from access to $2.5 billion of emergency reconstruction assistance requested by the White House last month, and the House has insisted the money be channeled through the State Department, the official manager of foreign assistance (DeYoung/Morgan, Washington Post, April 6).